Los Angeles Times goes wall-to-wall on school shootings, mentions Chicago in passing

America is thankful that CNN asked the question on everyone’s minds: Would Donald Trump have killed Harambe to save the four-year-old who managed to get inside the Cincinnati Zoo’s gorilla enclosure?

One follow-up question: Would Americans rather hear Sally Kohn opine about gorilla lives mattering more than black lives or dive head first into the gorilla pit and take their chances there? Kohn claimed that Harambe’s death inspired much more outrage than the death of Tamir Rice did, although we missed the coverage of gorilla enthusiasts holding a die-in in the streets and clashing with police.

On Wednesday, the nation watched as UCLA went on lockdown after a former Ph.D student killed a professor (with a 9mm machine gun) before shooting himself. The Los Angeles times noted the irony that the shooting took place just a day before National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

To be fair, the UCLA shooting was a local news story for the Los Angeles Times. But if there’s such concern that the shooting of a single gorilla received disproportionate media coverage, maybe the 66 homicides and 400 shootings in Chicago in May could have inspired more than a couple of tweets.

The murder-suicide at UCLA was a tragic event, but hardly in the same league as the Sandy Hook massacre. There’s been a school shooting (fatal or not) once a week since then? Over Memorial Day weekend, an average of 23 people a day were shot in Chicago in spite of the mayor’s “Put the Guns Down” initiative.

They can bicker all they want about whose lives matter, but least gun control advocates can find common ground on whom to blame for gun violence in both UCLA and Chicago: the NRA.